1)   Choose one of the 4 images provided in the file marked “Daily Themes Images” under “Resources” on the classes server. From this image construct a narrative for what is happening in the scene that would sit alongside the image (that is, your reader will also be looking at the image).

It started with a pop. Then three succeeding pops a crick and then a loud CABOOM that made Julia scream. She could hear the animalistic wail echo through the vast neighborhood as her father’s car shuddered to a stop.

“What…what just happened?” She asks herself, half expecting a response. The situation vaguely reminds her of a movie she’d seen with Stephanie on Halloween.

To her disappointment, nobody answers. Not that Julia earnestly expects a response. She had just hoped. Just one tiny voice out in the darkness receding into nothingness. It is a twenty minute walk home at least, plus it was late. Julia is frightened.

“Can anybody help?” Nothing.

Alone. Julia is alone. She gets out of the car and walks down the street. She considers knocking on a stranger’s door and asking for help. But it is so late. Maybe she can figure something out and avoid getting into trouble. She dully continues walking, eyeing houses for signs of life, torn.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Julia knew better than to leave Frank’s place so late all on her own. She should have insisted he join her and walk back home. But Julia was embarrassed to ask. She was already one year younger and didn’t want to look like a baby. Frank likes the cool girls. Julia so badly wishes she were cool.

Her parents are going to kill her, she just knows it. Her Dad’s temper is impossible to settle. This car is his baby, to boot, and she isn’t allowed to drive it. She isn’t supposed to go out after 11P.M., let alone on a Tuesday night. She draws her hand to her cheek in anticipation of a hard slap.

She turns back, defeated. Maybe she should just wait in the car until the sun rises, and then find help. The night street is no place for her.

And then she sees him.

Who is he?

Mystified, she approaches the passenger side of the car.  She reaches out her hand to the man’s shoulder. He is dressed nicely, she notes. Through the shock and tired delirium she wonders if he has come to rescue her.

And he grabs her arm and digs his nails into her skin. She cries in pain. Shrieks rattle the mailboxes and windows. She can hear her veins popping. They echo, too.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

2)   There is a form of bibliomancy called “Sortes Virgilianae” in which predictions of the future are determined by randomly selecting lines from the Aeneid.   First, determine what your Aeneid is—that is to say, the book that seems most important to your sense of yourself.  Then determine a way to randomly select a line from that book.  Once you have a line, use this as either the first line or the last line of a theme—this can either be fiction or nonfiction, just don’t make it a “reading” of the line in terms of literary criticism.  Use the line to generate something new—don’t use the same characters, situations, and so forth from the source text (i.e. no Harry Potter fan fiction!).

(Catch-22)

Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!

How had I gotten myself into this disastrous situation? First, kidnapped in India. I narrowly escaped that mess. That was all through the magic of money and bribery. No one in India can deny the sheer power of a couple of hundreds. But this – THIS was a problem that money, for once, could not solve.

Climb! Up! Up! Up!

How had I found myself here, actually? The memories dimly flickered before me. I graduated UConn without any idea of who I was or what I wanted to do. My parents, divorced (they always are), threw thousands at me to “find myself.” My buddy from the lacrosse team and I picked random countries in Europe and Asia and went for it. He got kidnapped, too, but had lost it. He went home as soon as the boat dropped us off on the safe shore with the other hapless tourists.

Damnit! Shit! Climb!

I journeyed to Ecuador by myself on what I had left and found myself a job. My parents have no idea. I began working as a tour guide, working as an expert on the Amazonian jungle to journey hapless tourists like me through the mad jungle.

Climb, climb, climb!

Nature had a mind of its own today.

So here I am, dangling on a frayed rope over a 70-meter waterfall, my rope frayed and my legs flaying in the air. I grip onto the slippery rock in front of me. Cold water slams into my face. An errant twig pummels me in the gut.

I’ll make it through. I’ll survive as my hapless tourists scream and squeal below me.

Slowly, I begin to scale the rocky wall before me.

Climb!

3)   Write a theme that includes or becomes a long curse directed towards something—the snow, for instance or cancer or Valentine’s Day or the discontinuation of Twinkies.

I hated you the moment that I laid my four eyes on you.

As a kid, I’d preferred video games to playing outside with other kids. I had a tendency of dropping and crushing my glasses when playing tag or football or whatever. Sometimes maybe the kids would throw them to the ground and stomp on em’ themselves. My folks “weren’t made of money” and didn’t “appreciate” having to buy me new ones every other week. The video games weren’t cheap, neither. But I saved up my tooth fairy cash and lunch money just to buy the newest, best releases.

Playing in other worlds was much better than living in my boring, black-and-white reality. Being called a nerd all the time stings. I never got used to it and hated the other nerds all the more for it. School was the worst since I couldn’t even escape in my daydreams. The other boys made sure of that and reminded me how much I sucked on pretty much an hourly bass. I ran home after class every day to the electric glow of the TV screen. After a while, I would stay up for days without more than two hours sleep cause’ even my dreams were too dull.

And then you came.

When Dad brought home his new PC from work I thought it was ugly and ignored it for a week or two. One day he had me play with it, I’m not sure why. And then he introduced me to you, Internet. And I was never the same.

I became addicted to interacting with others just like me online. The broken, the abandoned, the forgotten. The resentful. The nerds. We could talk in chatrooms and share ideas and exchange tips on our favorite videogames. I even nabbed my first girlfriend in a chatroom. I didn’t sleep for four whole days straight after Dad logged me into Yahoo.

Internet, you have robbed me of reality. I cannot go into a coffee shop without wondering if the WiFi is free, I choose airlines based on the Internet availability in the terminals,  I mechanically check my e-mail on my iPhone every minute, I cannot meet someone without mentally devising their eHarmony profile in my head, and every time I see something weird or funny I wonder how many karma points I can rack up on Reddit for it.

I went from being disconnected to all too connected. I could have had a shot at normality, Internet.

4)   For today, let us pay our respects to the ancestors.  Write a ghost story that you have heard or experienced.

When Angela and I stepped into the house with the realtor, we knew it was the one. We told Sheila, our realtor, that we were willing to put a payment down on the spot. Nothing seemed amiss, but I suspect Sheila knew what she was getting us into. I saw a crack in her realtor’s façade, a quick glimmer of doubt, something all too real in her expression. But we went ahead and moved in.

Seven years passed. Sure, we heard the rumors, and knew about the house’s murky past. We found the doors tucked away in the back of closets that led to connecting tunnels and rooms. An entire network existed below our house. They reeked of death. Dead bodies, tucked away deep, surely resided below. The former owners had hidden away and tortured their slaves here for decades. When Angela and I found the rooms, we had the doors covered up, but there was nothing we could do about the tunnels.

Ben is our only son. Ben is the reason we started having trouble. First, he routinely began talking to himself. He told us he was speaking with the others in the house, and we thought it was a hackneyed prank he had picked up from too much television. But then things started moving around the house, doors opening and closing, mirrors shattering, silverware thrown across the room in the middle of the day.

We decided to move. Across states, even.

But the spirits followed us, and the bizarre behaviors continued. Ben that they have unfinished business. And they are going to take care of it through us.

1)   Looking over the dream notes that you kept all week, flesh out one of the dreams into a theme. You can shape this and craft it anyway you would like—and bear in mind you have an audience.

My roommates have been talking a lot about karma and energies. I used to think it was a load of bullshit. If you’d asked me a month ago if I believed in the psychic powers of the human mind, I would have laughed in your face. But now, I’m not so sure.

I started having dreams. I never dreamed before this past month. I mean, I’m sure I dreamed, but I could never remember. Didn’t really think much about it, to be honest. But the dreams, they were so vivid. And I could control everything about them. Flying, transforming, meeting famous people, all under my command. I couldn’t control what people did in my dreams though. That was up to them.

I had a dream about my ex. She came to my house – my old house, the one I had when we were dating – and begged for me back. We walked up and down the cul-de-sac and I refused her, reminding her how she had cheated on me. She cried and cried in her purple dress before walking off. Mind you, I haven’t spoken to this girl in real life for three years.

The next day, I get this call from an unknown number. And it’s her. She wants to visit me. I let her, and the whole weekend is this cry-fest that I can’t stand at all. I hate drama. But I was curious. She wore the same outfit as she did in my dream. The purple dress. And she said the same thing. Cried the same way. It drove me crazy.

And then the dog. We have this dog at home, she wasn’t too old, maybe six years old, supposed to live for six or seven more years. I had this dream she was in my arms and I was crying and she was so weak, whimpering, dying. I woke up with tears pouring down my face. I call my Mom, confused, to make sure the dog is okay.

“We’re putting her to sleep today. She’s got a tumor, and she’s in terrible pain.”

Mind. Blown.

And it keeps happening. I summon events and people from my past with a simple dream. But the thing is, they are always sad. Something bad always happens. I hate going to bed now, not knowing what nightmares I’ll carry on into everyday life.

The dreams have been happening less and less often. I think I should talk to someone about it, but I’m scared of what they’ll think. And say.

Maybe I can dream about it.

Memory 4 & 5

4) Our very own Charley Locke and Leland Whitehouse have a radio show (“Soundtrack to a Life”) on which they ask guests to construct a playlist of songs that carry strong associations.  Choose a song that generates free associations and write about the song and what comes from this.  The task here, however, will to avoid mere nostalgia or sentimentality. Find an association that is more than merely “pleasing”—that is, go beyond just the pleasure of remembering. Write in such a way that you reflect on the connection between music and memory. Or you might try a different sense and choose instead a smell or scent that triggers memories.

I slide the keys into ignition and press a heel against the ignition. I remember that they always tell you that you’re not supposed to drive in heels but suppress my chiding superego and rev up the engine and check my makeup in the mirror. Perfect. The purple eyeshadow was a risk but a definite win in the long run and I cannot wait for everyone at the party to see how amazing my hair looks pulled back and wild in the back. I giggle. They always tell you that you’re not supposed to drive drunk but I’m just a little tipsy so what’s the big deal I’ll get there just fine.

            I pull out of the driveway at 1 A.M. on the dot. I glance at the light in my parents’ room. My heart skips a beat because they can’t still be up or I’m screwed but then I notice that the flickering light means my Mom just left CSI on and that means they are definitely both fast asleep.

            I drive through my quiet suburban neighborhood and keep an eye out for any other teenagers sneaking out from their domestic prisons at this fine hour. Yeah right. I’m the only one over sixteen years old in these here parts except for that goody-goody Melinda who lives on the corner who gives me dirty looks for whispering to my sister in Church instead of paying attention and being respectful. I bet she’s in bed. She’ll be up at eight A.M. for her early morning run no doubt and maybe I’ll drive by her on my way back from the rager at Aly’s I’m about to crash.

            I swing into Mary’s driveway and she hops in the car. She’s more smashed than even I am and I have to slap her hands away from the steering wheel about three times before she gets the idea and turns her attention to the radio dial and puts on our favorite pop station. We jam.

            We arrive at Aly’s and I feel dizzy and I park in the grass and we hop out and I readjust my skin-tight dress before we click-clack-click-clack our way into the backyard. I open the door and hear the collective gasp of a party of former friends who thought I’d never find out about this party and have the guts to show up but here I am and I dare you to try and kick me out. The boys would never let it happen and even if they did Mary definitely wouldn’t and now I’m going to have fun so just back off and hand me the Malibu.

            I look right into my former best friend’s eyes and laugh out loud. I haven’t seen someone look this scared since that time I saw my sister’s face after my brother locked her in the closet for ten minutes and she thought she was going to die and I broke her out and gave her a glass of orange juice which is her favorite to keep her from hyperventilating. My sister is at home asleep in our room in her twin bed and it would kill her to know that I drink like this and I should probably go home.

            My cell phone rings and I see my Dad’s name flash on my Razor’s screen.

            I should probably go home.

5) Look back on the themes from this week, and write about the processes of memory and writing they embody.  What differences did you find in writing about an early memory versus a recent one? Where and how did you find yourself questioning your memories?  Where and how did you have to invent those things that fill gaps in your memory?  What was your response when you discovered other people had different memories? What did you learn while writing---about those memories, memory itself, writing, or yourself?  This theme might be free-standing, or it might incorporate one or more of this week’s other themes. 

           

            Writing about the distant past is absolutely much easier than it is writing about myself within the past two years. It is easy to incriminate my seventeen-year-old self, so far removed from who I am today that I feel entirely absolved of all guilt. Then again, my ease of writing about the far past might derive from the fact that most of it is fictionalized. It has to be – I have a terrible memory. When I struggle, I close my eyes and try to recall the spaces and motions I went through during those time periods. In remembering about my childhood, it is the actual space I inhabited (the boxwoods, sandbox) that I remember most vividly. My other memories – interactions with others, for instance – are memory runoff. I also call my siblings and parents for additional bolstering of memory. I know I have a tendency to forget or even blot parts of my past out, so I was not at all surprised to hear that others have entirely different or even contrasting memories. I learned, particularly in the music piece, that my memories are strongly sensorial. I remember things based on what I smell and hear the best. What I see and the actual dialogues I share are much weaker. Therefore, I had to be very liberal with the conversations I portrayed in my memories. It’s frustrating, and made me admire those who actually can remember their pasts so precisely. A very fun week, indeed!

DT Week 4

Daily Themes Week 3 Assignments                                    Memory                            February 5, 2013

1) The writer/visual artist Joe Brainard wrote a book entitled I Remember comprised of a series of statements that all begin, “I remember…” (see the excerpt I have posted under “resources.”). You will note the way that the language is straightforward and unadorned.  The work builds by accruing the memories and suggesting connections by way of juxtaposition rather than explanation.  Write 20 “I remembers…” of your own drawn from your whole life.  Don’t rush but don’t take too long either.  Give yourself a set amount of time to come up with these—say 45 minutes.  Then go back and revise and exchange anything you would like.  Move between specific details and slightly longer events.

. I remember the wall of movies we used to treasure, back in Lower School. Everyone knew about it. Kids would come over just to see this tower of VHS classics. Lion King, Doug, Natural Geographic, you name it, we had it. What they didn’t know was my Mom bought these on markdown at flea markets since no one was ever home. Mom and Dad never got back til’ ten at night, sometimes eleven. Sometimes we never saw them until the next day, after school. The three of us loved Rugrats and Pokemon, though, so we never minded too much.

. I remember finding a cat tooth in the sandbox during recess. I thought I’d found a dinosaur.

. I remember chasing Colin around the playground.

. I remember that Colin never loved me back. He did teach me how to tie my shoes, though.

. I remember seeing Colin on television for the first time when I was fourteen. I knew I had good taste.

. I remember my first playdate. Priya told me to stop following her around. I couldn’t help it – I was nervous, and I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to be polite. All she wanted was a snack while we were playing video games.

. I remember cutting Alexis’ face out of our group’s picture.

. I remember sticking Alexis’ cut-out-face to the inside of her locker.

. I remember, five years later, Alexis lying to favorite teacher about how I had seduced my admissions officer in order to get into college.

. I remember seeing him for the first time and wanting to run my fingers through his hair and mess it up a little bit and see if he liked it. He did.

. I remember when he hugged me from behind in the darkroom after school and falling, instantaneously, in love.

. I remember coming home at five A.M., sneaking in while the sweet spring sun was still up, hungover and happy. I would tiptoe onto our back porch, take off my flip-flops and hold them in my hands, and skip over the creaky stairs on the way back to my room. My sister would still be asleep. She is a very deep sleeper. I would put down my flip-flops, change into a big T-shirt and shorts, and slide under the covers with a big grin on my face.

. I remember punching Dad in the stomach when he caught me sneaking out. It took him four years to notice.

. I remember crying on the first day of college. And the second day. And the third day. And the fourth day. And the fifth day. And the sixth day. And the seventh day. Repeat, three times.

. I remember breaking up with him and hearing him cry for the first time.

. I remember meeting him for coffee after he got out of rehab. We both looked like shit.

. I remember his car driving off in the distance at four A.M. and walking right through the front door not caring if anyone noticed because love was dead and nothing mattered anymore.

. I remember walking into the coffee shop for the first time and seeing him. I went to that coffee shop every day, twice a day, for the next two weeks until he finally asked me out. It took two years.

. I remember running my hands through his hair for the first time. It wasn’t the same.

2) Write a second theme that builds on the first.  Take one of the “I remembers…” you have written and expand on it, filling in details and specifics, setting tone and mood.  This time paying attention to the style and form of how you render the memory.  Bear in mind that you need to make the memory compelling to someone else.  This means it must have some narrative tension or significance or revelation in order for others to care as well.

When I was six years old, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Absolutely, irrevocably, unreservedly obsessed. With every fiber of my pre-pubescent being, I longed for the dinosaurs to return, for the ankylosaurs and hadrosaurs to emerge from the boxwoods and play with me at recess. I poured over books detailing the history and science of dinosaurs. I memorized all of their names, what their eggs looked like, what habitats they preferred. Whenever asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I proudly declared that my future lay in paleontology, that I would dedicate my life to the pursuit and study of dinosaurs. I researched what it took to become a successful paleontologist. Determined, I began my practice in the sandbox.

Digging in the sandbox for dinosaur bones became routine. My classmates thought my lack of interest in the monkey bars bizarre, but found my dedication endearing in the same way that Bill Clinton must have felt about Hilary Clinton’s pursuit of the Oval Office.

During my daily digs I would often have to share the sandbox with my peers. We were careful not to disturb each other. I would let Marina build her tower so long as she didn’t throw her excess sand in my hole. The other kids and I came to an unspoken agreement about the sandbox. Let the wannabe-paleontologist do her work, and she won’t talk our ears off about the distinction between pterosaurs and aquatic mammals while we’re trying to build a sand fort.

After weeks of digging without success, I was frustrated, but accepting. I knew that paleontologists spent months, even years, of their lives before their first big discovery. And then, I found her: the tooth. A dinosaur tooth!

I ran rampant around the playground. I showcased my dinosaur tooth to anyone who would look. I even showed it to the teacher. She was not impressed. Rather, she took it from me, put it in a plastic baggy, and told me to take it to the nurse. The nurse? She was afraid I’d caught something from it. I was fine, and the nurse called my parents to pick me up early.

That night, my parents told me I needed to stop digging in the sandbox, that I needed to try and make friends. The teacher was worried. My dad took the tooth to his lab, and we found out that it was a cat tooth, not a dinosaur tooth as I had so dearly hoped.

I cannot recall how I lost interest in dinosaurs. The cat tooth was certainly the beginning. Sometimes I wonder how my life might have turned out if I had tried to become a paleontologist. Is it too late?

I do know one thing: that whenever I go to the museum, I dash to the dinosaurs.

3) Take a memory you have of a particular event that you saw or that you participated in and write about it from someone else’s perspective (a friend, an enemy, a disinterested party, the newspapers—the choice is up to you). Feel free to fictionalize this perspective (at some level it is unavoidable) or to call someone and ask him/her about his/her perspective (and thus see how it veers from your own). The more different the perspective is from your own, the more you will be able to discover about the memory.  Avoid making yourself the hero of your memory.

            I am a teacher. The best kind: a drama teacher. I teach students from ages three through eighteen all about music, drama, and performance. Even though it isn’t what I always saw myself doing when I was younger – I had dreamed of Broadway, singing and dancing myself into a sweat every night, living in a quaint apartment in Brooklyn, dodging hobos in the greasy New York streets, bumping into Sean Penn at a Starbucks – but my career never took off. My friends and family say I did it to myself…I met a man on tour, fell in love, got pregnant, got married, and got fired. My husband and I, we both had to abandon our dreams of stardom. But it’s selfish to focus on your career when you’ve got your son at home, and another on the way… Sometimes I wonder…but I love my sons, I would never have done it differently.

            Today is a special day at Glenelg Country School. The fifth grade class will be putting on their fifth grade musical, 42^nd Street, and auditions are happening in fifteen minutes. Auditioning is mandatory for each member of the 72-person class of 2009, so today I have the chance to see the star potential in all of these children. The chances of discovering the next Broadway superstar are slim, but I can potentially steer choice children towards a life of the arts. All it takes is a bit of positive feedback, and they are hooked. That’s what happened to me. Applause is hard to resist.

            Here we go. The auditions start as they usually do. The boys jostle around uncomfortably, the girls titter nervously amongst themselves. Sheets of sixteen bar audition songs crinkle and flutter in the nervous air. There is definitely potential in this class. A lot of talented boys. A few girls who can carry a tune, but a lot of girls with a big personality. Divas, left and right. I sort girls into “ingénue,” “villain,” and “dancer” buckets when she steps forward.

            With a boombox.

            “I’m, uh, going to be using a background track. A CD. Is that okay?”

            Taken by surprise, all I can do is nod.

            She has zero stage presence. She is a bit awkward, her long, uncombed hair blocking her nondescript face. And the school uniform looks particularly unflattering on her…how regrettable. And then she sings…and it sounds quite pretty. Shaky, but good. She is singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a rather unconventional audition song. But she cares. I like that.

            I notice some of the divas laughing, even some of the guys pointing and snickering. That makes me like her just a little bit more.

            She finishes her song and thanks me. Shaking, she carries the boombox back into a corner of the room, and disappears into the sea of ten-year-olds. I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of the crowd. She is certainly not the ideal lead, and will never make it on the big stage.

            I put her under “Ingenue,” and draw a star next to her name as the next boy steps forward.

            Someone to remember.

English 450b                        Daily Themes Week 3 Assignments            January 29, 2013

 1)  Style involves a way of doing or saying things that ends up expressing aspects of the self.  There are all sorts of styles, and anything we do or say is likely to convey a specific sense of style.  Write a theme about a style you admire or, at least, find interesting and worthy of description and reflection.  It could be a way of talking or dressing, of singing or cooking, of dancing or painting.  Focus on one person’s way of doing that thing.  Be aware of the style your own theme conveys.  In other words, write in a way that resonates with the style you are describing.  It can be a version of the style you choose as your subject, or it may be very different and contrast with your subject (possibly for ironic effect).

Dervilla enters a room like a spring breeze. First, you hear the hum of a classic Simon and Garfunkel tune growing louder and louder as she nears, the click-clacking of heels conducting each verse, her honey-rich voice a delicious score for conversation. Then, the smell, reminiscent of dewy four-leaf clovers in the sunrise. You cannot help but be reminded of dizzy days of youth spent rolling down grassy knolls, returning home touting grass stains with pride. You might not even notice her when she slinks in, hips swaying to the beat of her song, lids drawn lazily low. The flow of her raggedy peach dress reminds you of a documentary on the 60’s you watched with your friends while high the other night. The curvature of her lithe limbs disappear and reappear with every billowing movement. You realize you’re staring and make an effort to study your cocktail.

She picks and chooses her company with care, but you wouldn’t know it. She lands before you as if by accident. When she talks to you, the discussion rambles without aim. This scares you. She doesn’t seem to notice your nervous laugh. She’s too busy thinking about the beautiful lilt of your voice, the particular shape of your pupils, the way you wag your eyebrows to punctuate every sentence. She tells you this. You don’t know what to say. She smiles, all teeth, and turns, her loose waves soaring gloriously behind her. She wanders on to the next unsuspecting partygoer, and you stare, wondering blandly what has just happened.

2)  Find a passage of prose from some academic book.  Replace all the nouns and verbs with whatever you would like that isn’t academic prose—words drawn from daily experiences.  Replace whatever adjectives or modifiers you would like. All the rest—articles, prepositions, etc—keep the same.  Also, keep the order of the parts of the speech consistent.

This dwarf leopard enjoyed a hermetic lifestyle, demonstrating its thoughtful demeanor and utter disinterest in companionship. Few ocelots ventured through the lush forest floor that was his home, but the odd adventurer (not from around this neck of the woods) happened upon his territory from time to time. He never allowed them to stay for long. If the booby traps he had set up didn’t deter the intruder, a hard swipe to the face usually worked. There were a number of dwarf leopards with the tell-tale scar, always across the left cheek, roaming the dense thickets of South America.

He had been the only kitten in his litter. He was smaller than most ocelot kittens. His mother, even more disinterested in having company than he was, limped away from the runt as soon as she could. He didn’t mind. He didn’t want to spend time with her, either.

There was one companion. She did not last long. He courted her for nearly two weeks before she relented. He set up a rocky bluff for her to deliver her litter, packing it with dense leaves and delicious game. One day, bird in maw, he returned to their humble home to find her missing. She never returned. He heard she ran off with a huskier ocelot. He wasn’t very fond of her anyway.

Tonight, he rests beneath the dewy foliage. He licks his lips. Sleep looms near. But then he hears the rustle of leaves, not too far away. Readying his claws, he lopes off into the distance, looking forward to terrorizing yet another hapless stranger.

3) Take a look at the excerpt from Hemingway’s “End of Something.”  Using the present tense, depict an exchange (observed or invented) between two people who have different ways of talking.  You might make the difference glaring or subtle or somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.  What are the features of their respective verbal styles?   What do those styles imply about their different perspectives and experiences?  What do and don’t they understand in what each other is saying? What if any adjustments to each other’s way of talking do they make in the course of conversation?  Make the conversation a dramatic encounter not only between two people, but two styles.  It’s also an opportunity to use narrative and dialogue analytically. Restriction: don’t make this a conversation between romantic partners or between a parent and child.

            “Thank you for your time, Rosa. We greatly appreciate the time and effort it must have taken for you to navigate. We are a ways away, and during rush hour, for heaven’s sake! And in this rain! I apologize, Rosa, I really do.”

            “No. Ah…not a problem.”

            “In any case. Now then. Remind me, what brings you here today?”

            “Er, ah, the card.”

            “The card?”

            “I, um, was walking down the Houstown Street yesterday and, ahm, excuse me, hm,  um, well, you see, then, you know, the card.”

            “Would you mind elaborating? I apologize. You see, it is quite early, and I am having a bit of trouble following your story.”

            “Well, hm. I was, ah, walking down the street. Right? And, and, and,  I saw the card. You know, ah, on, on, on, the ground. Well, actually, er, I stepped. Um. I stepped on it. And, ah, I kept walking. But, then, ah, then. Seconds later, for some, ah, for some reason, I, ah, turned.”

            “You turned?’           

            “Yes. I, ah, I turned around. You know, to see – to see, what it was. That I had, ah, that I had stepped on.”

            “I see.”

            “So, er, ah. I picked it up. And I saw, I saw the address. To, you see, to the house. My house. I had, er, just left. But then I remembered, ah, that I had, erm, forgotten a book at the, ah, house.”

            “Interesting. A book?”

            “Oh, ah, I was going to a, ah, erm, a meeting. Yes, a meeting. For, ah, my book, my book club. And I needed the book.”

            “Hm. What book?”

“Ah…Hemingwow. Catch-23.”

“I adore that book. Why did you turn around?”

            “But, ah, I needed to go back.”

            “That must have taken quite some time.”

            “Just an hour. Of, ah, walking. I didn’t want to, to, to, waste money on a cab. You know how, ah, how, well, how much they can, er, ah, cost.”

            “What did you find in the house?”

            “The body.”

            “Where was it?”

            “Sitting in, ah, the chair. You know, er, the living room chair. She was, erm, reading, my ah, book. But er, there was, ah, blood. On my book. So, ah, I needed to leave. Er. The bookstore. I, ah, went to the bookstore.”

            “Strange reaction.”

            “I was, ah, frightened.”

            “But the ladies tell me you made it to the book club.”

            “Ah, yes.”

            “And you had a wonderful evening together, you ladies.”

            “Er.”

            “Rosa, you can stop now. We know that you are lying. We have it on tape. There was no card. But there was a video. And we have you on security tape. You strangled her. You murdered Mrs. Gluck at approximately four-forty-five P.M. on October 27^th, 1997. It is time to go now, Rosa. You’re under arrest. ”           

4) Using plain, ordinary words, write a theme about someone or something you love passionately.  Use the tension between strength (and possibly complexity) of feeling and simplicity of expression.  Let particularity, precision, understatement, and implication convey emotional power.   

He might not have done it very well, but Clark Kent was brilliant to keep his superhuman identity a secret. Superpowers can be dangerous. All you have to do is look at our forgotten superpower. It’s something that we do without thinking. It is pretty miraculous. The ability to create music is one of the biggest bonuses of being human. This is, at least, what I was taught in third grade, and how I have since regarded my capacity to generate ribbons of sound. You can make the ribbons bold, soft, subtle, monotonous, repetitive, erratic…whatever you feel, you can do it. You can invent and distribute noises that no human before you has dared share before. You can change other people’s lives with music, and without ever having to meet them. Wilco will never know how many days they turned around for me. The anonymity is the best part. To be in a sea of humans at a concert, hearing the same ribbons, wrapping your own sounds around the ribbons in an abandoned collective. 

The funniest part is the money. It is sad and absurd that humans monetize the simplest, sweetest things about life. Like singing. It has become a business – celebrities invent entire personas and backgrounds in order to thrive in the music-making business. I like to think of the Beyonce’s and the Mariah Carey’s as they were at age five or six. They started singing in their room, alone. Perhaps on a piano bench, plucking out random keys. They started alone. Singing to themselves, they felt a rush of energy, the activation of their superpower. Eventually, someone overheard them and rushed to share their superpowers with the rest of the world. And make money. Lots and lots of money. The five-year-old music lover disappeared, replaced by a world-renowned diva with a penchant for globetrotting. The innocent love of singing sucked dry. I bet they can’t even sing for fun anymore, at least without thinking of where their singles are climbing on the charts.

Sometimes it is better to keep your superpowers a secret.

5) The French writer Raymond Queneau wrote a book entitled Exercises in Style in which he represented the same basic event in ninety-nine different ways.  Here is the anecdote:

On the S bus, at rush hour. A chap of about 26, felt hat with a cord instead of a ribbon, neck too long, as if someone’s been having a tug-of-war with it.  People getting off.  The chap in question gets annoyed with one of the men standing next to him.  He accuses him of jostling him every time anyone goes past.  A sniveling tone which is meant to be aggressive.  When he sees a vacant seat he throws himself on to it.

Two hours later, I meet him in the Cour of Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He’s with a friend who’s saying: “You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat.” He shows him where (at the lapels) and why.

Write the event in two different ways—once as a comedy and once as a tragedy (even perhaps operatic in its scope).

            He glances around the S bus anxiously. Everyone is anxious. It is rush hour, after all. But this chap, mid-twenties, looks especially anxious. He repeatedly removes and examines his felt hat, running a hand along the cord, before putting it back on again. The neck is cartoonishly elongated. A young man – uniformed, Hemingway under his arm, he looks as if he is late to class – studies the anxious fellow. His palms appear to be sweating. Are his shoulders shaking? Before he can investigate further, the anxious-seeming man wishes the scholar haste to his grave. He punctuates the threat with a grin. The young man’s jaw drops, and he rushes away to a vacant seat.

            The anxious man leaves a package on the bus at the next stop, and hurries along. There are sweat stains in the armpits of his grey cotton T-shirt. The bus did not make it past the next block.

            Two hours later, he meets his boss in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He feels accomplished. He gestures to the extra button on his overcoat, demonstrating how he hid the device without drawing suspicion. “You ought t get an extra button in your overcoat,” he encourages his boss. His boss does not seem convinced.

...

            I’m late to work. I got on the wrong bus, the S bus. I thought it was the T, or maybe the P. Either would have worked fine. Just fine. But, thinking about that deliverable I need to make up for on account of the leather-mining fiasco in Antigua that got in the way yesterday, I got on the wrong bus. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

            I picked up the wrong hat. Off the hook, I mean. I went into the Starbucks, put my hat down. And picked up this ridiculous felt hat with a cord. This is what happens without your morning coffee, I suppose. I need to start injecting myself with caffeine in the morning.

            People walk on and off the bus. I’m on the aisle seat, the worst seat. People always bump into my legs. They are too long. Like a grasshopper’s. This one guy keeps knocking into my legs. Normally I can ignore it, but today is not the day. After about the twentieth time he steps on my newly-shined shoes, I turn to him and tell him to back off.  I have a cold. My voice sounds especially nasal today. The man scurries away. Good riddance.

            Two hours later, I’ve given up. I meet my boyfriend in the Cour of Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. “You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat,” I declare. “It’s what all the dames in Paris are doing these days. It’s haute, haute, haute. Trust me, you’ll be more stylish than any of those hobnobs at the office.”

Quote

"A statement is not true because it is enunciated in an unpolished idiom, nor false because the words are splendid."

Week Three, Theme 1

 1)  Style involves a way of doing or saying things that ends up expressing aspects of the self.  There are all sorts of styles, and anything we do or say is likely to convey a specific sense of style.  Write a theme about a style you admire or, at least, find interesting and worthy of description and reflection.  It could be a way of talking or dressing, of singing or cooking, of dancing or painting.  Focus on one person’s way of doing that thing.  Be aware of the style your own theme conveys.  In other words, write in a way that resonates with the style you are describing.  It can be a version of the style you choose as your subject, or it may be very different and contrast with your subject (possibly for ironic effect).

Dervilla enters a room like a spring breeze. First, you hear the hum of a classic Simon and Garfunkel tune growing louder and louder as she nears, the click-clacking of heels conducting each verse, her honey-rich voice a delicious score for conversation. Then, the smell, reminiscent of dewy four-leaf clovers in the sunrise. You cannot help but be reminded of dizzy days of youth spent rolling down grassy knolls, returning home touting grass stains with pride. You might not even notice her when she slinks in, hips swaying to the beat of her song, lids drawn lazily low. The flow of her raggedy peach dress reminds you of a documentary on the 60’s you watched with your friends while high the other night. The curvature of her lithe limbs disappear and reappear with every billowing movement. You realize you’re staring and make an effort to study your cocktail.

She picks and chooses her company with care, but you wouldn’t know it. She lands before you as if by accident. When she talks to you, the discussion rambles without aim. This scares you. She doesn’t seem to notice your nervous laugh. She’s too busy thinking about the beautiful lilt of your voice, the particular shape of your pupils, the way you wag your eyebrows to punctuate every sentence. She tells you this. You don’t know what to say. She smiles, all teeth, and turns, her loose waves soaring gloriously behind her. She wanders on to the next unsuspecting partygoer, and you stare, wondering blandly what has just happened.